Obesity is a global problem. The food we eat and the way we live our lives currently entail increasingly more people carrying excess fat. Dr. Guillermo Alvarez has been leading a war on obesity for his entire adult life.
Coming from a medical family, Dr. Alvarez decided early on in his career he wished to concentrate on weight loss and firmly believed that helping people tackle weight loss and lead a better quality of life was his true calling.
As one of only 12 doctors recognized worldwide as a Master Bariatric Surgeon, Dr. Alvarez is now a leading expert in the field on how best to tackle the obesity epidemic sensitively and effectively.
Dr. Alvarez has performed over 18,000 gastric sleeve surgeries, a procedure that reduces the size of the stomach by 80 percent. Compared with Gastric Bypass surgery, which reroutes the colon, it is far less invasive, and the sleeve surgery is the only procedure the Mexican doctor will perform because in his own words, “I always advocate minimally invasive procedures rather than full-blown surgery.”
The doctor added, “Many patients are unwilling or ineligible, for want of a better phrase, to go under the surgeon’s knife. There is not only the fear factor, but every surgical procedure carries an element of risk. Fortunately, in my field, we have in recent times benefited from some groundbreaking and minimally invasive weight-loss procedures that means we can fight the war on a different front.”
Dr. Alvarez explained, “If diet and exercise haven’t worked out so well for you and you have a body mass index of 30 or more, the Gastric Sleeve Surgery could be a viable solution. It can lead to significant weight loss by limiting how much you eat. It is minimally invasive and has a much lower risk of operative complications.”
Dr. Alvarez added, “As with any procedure tailored to tackle obesity, the gastric sleeve does not work on its own. The patient needs to commit to a healthier lifestyle and a regular exercise program, but for me, it wins hands down when compared to more invasive surgical procedures.”
